r/science • u/eastbayted • 2d ago

Health Sick food service workers remain top driver of viral foodborne outbreaks in US

https://www.healio.com/news/gastroenterology/20250331/sick-food-service-workers-remain-top-driver-of-viral-foodborne-outbreaks-in-us
17.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

528 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

186

u/gangler52 2d ago

At a restaurant I used to work at, when the dishwasher called in sick, one of the waitresses would have to wash dishes, which meant she didn't get tips from waiting tables.

So, that was a constant source of drama.

109

u/nonowords 2d ago

unless they switch to an hourly wage for that time that is wildly illegal. If they did switch though, then that's funny as hell to me.

91

u/DeshTheWraith 2d ago

I can't imagine the hourly wage they pay is anywhere near worth her time to not receive tips.

16

u/barontaint 2d ago

I got $18 an hour to wash dishes when I last was doing it to help buddies out post covid. I'm told the going rate has gone up since then. Granted these are big city Cleveland rates though. If that's not worth her time then that place needs to have an honest discussion about BOH vs FOH payrate and potential tip sharing.

1

u/DeshTheWraith 1d ago

My sisters ex used to have a job as a dishwasher here in MD. At a senior home not a restaurant, if that makes any difference (also NOT in a city), but he was making $14/hr during that time. I don't know how much a server averages with tips but I imagine in both our states they're doing better than that. Here even $21 would be straddling the poverty line.

44

u/nonowords 2d ago

it definitely wouldn't. Them having to do boh work for boh pay for a shift and it causing drama is why I find it funny.

16

u/Piogre 2d ago

When I delivered pizza my wage when I was out on deliveries was a dollar less than when I was in the store. Literally the time elapsed between checking out for a deliveries and checking back in was tallied up and docked appropriately from my paycheck.

28

u/Synapse7777 2d ago

My son just got a job at a local papa johns delivering pizza and after his first day he said he was required to clock out when he made a delivery. He didn't return for a 2nd day.

10

u/doublebubbler2120 2d ago

I have a friend who worked for one in Conroe or Spring, Texas, and they get paid $2.35 while on delivery. Min wage for tipped workers.

5

u/worldspawn00 2d ago

Damn, when I worked a papa John's in college (about 15 years ago) we got state minimum (5.50 iirc) for the entire shift, plus our tips, plus a sliding scale commission on the deliveries themselves, 10% of your first 10, then it would go up to 15% when you hit 20 in a shift, it paid really well on busy nights.

2

u/guff1988 2d ago

Only $1? At Pizza Hut it was 4.25 while on the road.

5

u/gangler52 2d ago

I have no idea how they handled that. Honestly, never occurred to me to ask.

2

u/unclefisty 1d ago

My anecdotal experience has been that restaurants are rampant with wage theft by employers, especially since many of the people working there are not well off and have no idea of their actual rights.

1

u/HaloGuy381 15h ago

Or even if they know them, they lack the means to hire a lawyer to fight or to bring a case to the proper agencies. Even if the lawyer is on contingency, the time involved to gather information and find allies is more than people barely putting bread on the table can muster.

Also, not quite the same, but retail at least attracts a -lot- of workers with a wide variety of disabilities (which are often not formally categorized because to declare it is a giant sign saying “find an excuse to fire me”), some of which may not interfere with work but might make it very difficult to fight such a situation. Throw in how hard it is to find another employer for said people, and just letting the wage theft happen becomes an understandable reaction.

14

u/Dashiepants 2d ago

Even if they did pay an hourly wage it would get eaten up by the taxes owed on tips, working a boh shift and foh shifts on the same paycheck means that you’re boh pay is going straight towards your end of year tax bill.